Excerpt from A Study of Ben Jonson IF poets may be divided into two exhaustive but not exclusive classes, -the gods of harmony and creation, the giants of energy. And invention, -the supremacy of Shakespeare among the gods of English verse is not more unquestionable than the. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from Studies in Ben Jonson Neither is of course satisfactory from our modern point of View, though here we have to be careful in our judgment, since we know that what was apparently the final and annotated version perished in the fire of 1623. As to accuracy, I cannot see that either text has greatly the advantage of the other. In the case of particular passages one would cast one's vote now for the one, now for the other, and often refuse to vote at all. This may be said for the Folio that occasionally one feels certain that an inferiority in accuracy was the price deliberately paid for a desired improvement in expression. Emphatic corroboration of this view as to the authority of the 12mo is to be found in the poem To the Queen on her Birthday, above, p. 97. The 12mo tells us in the last line that the queen was one-and-twenty; the Folio that she was two-and-twenty. Moreover, the Folio adds a stanza not to be found in the other version, and distributes the stanzas among the Muses. What this means is of course fairly obvious. Jonson wrote the song in the form found in the 12mo and in the following year revised it. Benson got hold of the earlier version. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from Ben Jonson He that hath feasted you these forty years, And fitted fables for your finer ears, Although at first he could not hit the bore. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from Ben Jonson and Shakespeare Sir Sidney Lee some twenty years ago committed himself to the following statement concerning William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon: "Patient investigation which has been in progress for more than two hundred years has brought together a mass of biographical detail which far exceeds that accessible in the case of any poet contemporary with Shakespeare." (Times, Jan. 8, 1902). Now if this statement is intended to mean (and I can assign no other reasonable significance to the words) that we know more about the life of Shakspere of Stratford than we know about that of any poet contemporary with him, there is an audacity about it which is really quite sublime; indeed the proverbial "one step" between the sublime and the ridiculous seems here to have entirely disappeared. It is quite true that around the name of "Shakespeare" there has grown up a mountainous mass of literature - of criticism, of illustration, of theory, of conjecture, of dogmatism, of assertion, of allusions, real or supposed, etc., etc. - which is perfectly appalling in its extent and variety; but notwithstanding that the whole world has been ransacked for evidence, and notwithstanding that lives have been devoted to the subject and an incredible amount of labour bestowed upon it, we find it as true to-day as it was when the late J. R. Green published his History of the English People, that "of hardly any great poet do we know so little." In marked contrast with Sir Sidney's flamboyant assertion are the more sober, and quite veracious, words with which Mr. Gregory Smith commences his recently published study of Ben Jonson in the "Englishmen of Letters" series (1919): - "We know more of Jonson than of any of the greater writers of his age. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from A Critical Examination of the Poetic Genius of Ben Jonson In asserting that this prologue touches with spirit as well as with humour on the defects and absurdities of the old stage, 'that Lyly, Kyd, and others are evidently pointed at, Giflord is surely mistaken and every impartial reader will willingly admit that Jonson is speaking of his own times, when he says that he loved the old stage not so much as to dare serve the ill customs 'of the age, i. E. The agc'in which he lived. That this must be the case follows from, the unmistakable allusion to Shakespeare's historical plays, representing th ar of the roses, of which no less than four plays (richard III. 1593, Richard II. 1594 and Henry IV. In two parts 1598) had been written and performed, when, Every man in hjs humour was acted on the stage. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The extraordinary character of Ben Jonson has only recently been brought into the light. Critics traditionally exalted Shakespeare, at Jonson’s expense. In this biography, first published in 1986, the author presents a full and accurate account of Jonson’s life in modern times. Rosalind Miles follows Jonson from his obscure beginnings to his burial in Westminster Abbey, as the first Poet Laureate, in 1637. Her Jonson is vivid and vigorous, equally alive in his life and in his work. This title will be of interest to students of history, English literature and Renaissance drama.
Excerpt from The Jonson Allusion-Book: A Collection of Allusions to Ben Jonson From 1597 to 1700 Moreover, in the period following the Restoration the editors have had to exercise a certain discretion in condensing allusions and passing over those possessing little or no significance. Most of these, however, have been collected, and, if the opportunity offers, may later be published by way of a supplement. Perhaps it should be added that the numerous jingling rhymes printed by W. R. Chetwood in his Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Ben Jonson, 1756, have been entirely ignored; Chetwood cites no authority for them, and they seem to be crude fabrications of his own Muse. Mr. Bradley originally undertook the task of gathering these allusions in the preparation of a doctoral dissertation at Cornell University, and to him belongs the major credit of collecting and transcribing the passages. Later Mr. Adams became associated with him in the labor, and assumed specifically the responsibility of editing the material for the reader. It has not always been easy to fix the dates of the passages quoted, or to identify the authors; and in dealing with such a mass of detail, it has doubtless been impossible to escape errors. For all such defects the editors crave the indulgence of scholars. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from The Works of Ben Jonson, Vol. 1 of 9: With Notes Critical and Explanatory and a Biographical Memoir HE publishers having determined, for reasons SO good as to admit of no gain saying, to make this reprint of Ben Jonson's Works an exact reproduction. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.
